You can hardly avoid the adverts for the various mobile operator's offers for 'internet on your mobile' assorted forms of flat rate data.
The concept is great. Pay around £7.50 a month and get 'unlimited' access to the internet from your phone.
Inevitably mobile customers will view this in a similar way to broad band - pay a flat fee and connect to the internet however you want, within reasonable download limits.
However when you look at the conditions there's always a catch.
Take T-Mobile's Web'nWalk. Aside from the terrible spelling/grammer of the name (!), the conditions state that:
Web'n'Walk - £7.50pm - 1GB monthly usage + "We do not permit use of this
service to provide modem access for a computer or for peer to peer file
sharing, internet phone calls or instant messaging."
So all you can do is connect to the web via their portal.
Similarly if you travel abroad, they will charge you £7 per megabyte of download. There is a news report where one of their director's even admitted this charge was excessive. However, the time that you need your mobile email the most is when you are away.
So far only around 20% of mobile users have taken up a flat rate data tariff. In terms of downloading content from web or mobile sites, that's still a lot of people, over 15 million. But what about the majority of mobile users who are not on a flat rate data tariff?
With home broadband you pay your monthly money and get a connection. If you don't pay, you don't get on the internet. Pretty simple.
With mobile, the majority of people can connect to mobile web. Unfortunately for 80% of users that means they will be paying up to £7 per megabyte to d so. Yet very few people realise the levels of the costs.
The problem for mobile content providers is that a music track, for exammple may cost £1 or less to buy but for 3 minutes, it may cost £21 in datacharges to download. As soon as a user realises this then they are unlikely to every download through their phone again.
There are a number of solutions to this. The simplest is that the operators should offer a fast data connection for all types of data at a single price to all their users. They should remove the 'pay as you download' tariff as it is unreasonably expensive.
Why should they change to this pricing model?
Currently the operators are only interested in users where there is a billing relationship. In other words they can charge money for some kind of transaction.
Switching to flat rate data will change this relationship - but ultimately for the good. Flat rate plans for everyone means that more web surfing and downloading will happen. The most popular round for payment on mobile is premium SMS. There will be more downloads and the operators make more money. Simple.
Another alternative would be to include the cost of the data in the download itself. That's effectively what happens with MMS but the size and formats are limited. The idea is that when a mobile user pays for their premium SMS for content, they should not have to pay any more to download it.
Poor user experience brought about by data charges has damaged the mobile content sector. Removing these charges will increase the downloads and ultimtely the revenues of the mobile operators.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Mobile Toilet
'SatLav', 'Down the Toilet' and 'Council Caught Short' are all likely headlines for London's Westiminster Council's 'text a toilet' scheme.
Whilst some people are criticising the initiative as a waste of resources, I think it's a great idea.
Finding a toilet in central London is getting increaingly difficult and it's a service that is of obvious and genuine benefit.
Users text 'toilet' to 80097 - using a location, the service identifies the nearest public lav. The 'SatLav' system charges 25p for each text.
As well as the council's 40 public toilets, the locations include the Greater London Authority, London Underground and some major department stores.
Westminster City Council said that the location service is designed to cut down on the amount of "street urination".
The council said: "Up to 45,460 litres of urine is at risk of ending up in the city's streets and alleyways through irresponsible and antisocial behaviour," Lovely!
Whilst I doubt that the average Saturday night drunk will pay 25p to text this, the service will be useful all kinds of other people.
There has been some debte amongst mobile developers of the take-up of location-based services. So far they have been quite limited. However, there are specific applications, such as the SatLav that can prove to be of benefit. Our messaging system txt4ever will include facilities to set up and manage mobile location services.
On a side note, the best public toilets in London have to be the ones on Baker Street, next to Westminster University. They have flowers, classical music and are spotlessly clean.
Whilst some people are criticising the initiative as a waste of resources, I think it's a great idea.
Finding a toilet in central London is getting increaingly difficult and it's a service that is of obvious and genuine benefit.
Users text 'toilet' to 80097 - using a location, the service identifies the nearest public lav. The 'SatLav' system charges 25p for each text.
As well as the council's 40 public toilets, the locations include the Greater London Authority, London Underground and some major department stores.
Westminster City Council said that the location service is designed to cut down on the amount of "street urination".
The council said: "Up to 45,460 litres of urine is at risk of ending up in the city's streets and alleyways through irresponsible and antisocial behaviour," Lovely!
Whilst I doubt that the average Saturday night drunk will pay 25p to text this, the service will be useful all kinds of other people.
There has been some debte amongst mobile developers of the take-up of location-based services. So far they have been quite limited. However, there are specific applications, such as the SatLav that can prove to be of benefit. Our messaging system txt4ever will include facilities to set up and manage mobile location services.
On a side note, the best public toilets in London have to be the ones on Baker Street, next to Westminster University. They have flowers, classical music and are spotlessly clean.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Value of Social Kudos
Here's a simple, obvious, yet very interesting point about the value of mobile content.
A survey a young group of mobile users asked the how much they would pay to download a track to their phone. They all gave answers of around 75p to £1.00.
When asked how much they would pay for a ringtone, it was around £3.
In other words, they would pay around 3 times as much for something that represented just a few seconds of a complete song!
Why was that?
The answer was social kudos. It was important that they were heard with the right ringtone on their phone. So important that they would spend more than 3 times the cost of the full track.
This principle can be applied to all kinds of items, for example in social networking you may pay to send a virtual bunch of flowers. The price of something is always based on it's perceived value, it is significant though how much value can be added when it gives social kudos.
A survey a young group of mobile users asked the how much they would pay to download a track to their phone. They all gave answers of around 75p to £1.00.
When asked how much they would pay for a ringtone, it was around £3.
In other words, they would pay around 3 times as much for something that represented just a few seconds of a complete song!
Why was that?
The answer was social kudos. It was important that they were heard with the right ringtone on their phone. So important that they would spend more than 3 times the cost of the full track.
This principle can be applied to all kinds of items, for example in social networking you may pay to send a virtual bunch of flowers. The price of something is always based on it's perceived value, it is significant though how much value can be added when it gives social kudos.
Mobile Content Glossary
Mobile Content Glossary
The difficulty with any new technology or economy are the proliferation of terms and acronyms. The following glossary is intended to cover many of the main terms, but is by no means exhaustive.
3GP – The standard format for mobile video. 3GP stores video streams such as MPEG-4, H.263 or H.264, and audio streams as AMR-NB or AAC-LC formats. 3GP also describes image sizes and bandwidth, so content is correctly sized for mobile display screens.
Aggregator – in the context of SMS and PSMS, an aggregator, such as Mblox, works with the mobile networks to agree shortcodes and bulk SMS routes which are provided to mobile platforms (immedia24)and content providers as single IP connection through their SMS Centre.
Billing Message – see PSMS
Bulk SMS – a common term for text messages bought from aggregators/SMS Centres. These messages are bought in blocks of 1000s or many 1000s at a lower cost than those bought from networks. Bulk SMS is typically used for mobile marketing campaigns and other web-based messaging applications.
Content Platform – or sometimes referred to as a delivery platform, such as . This is software or a web-based application for managing SMS and content delivery such as handling requests from messages sent from handsets. A platform will also provide reports of messages sent and receiving and revenues earned from PSMS.
D2C – Direct to Consumer
Flat Rate Data – see Mobile Data Charges
ICSTIS – The premium rate billing regulator, who are now renamed PhonepayPlus. All providers of PSMS must be registered with them as a service provider. They have the power to raise fines for breaches of their regulations, but only against the service provider and not the content provider – hence the service provider for the Richard and Judy Scandal, Eckoh received the fine, not Channel 4 themselves.
IP – Internet Protocol – any data that is sent or received using the internet.
J2ME – Java-based development language used for many mobile applications, especially games
MMS – Multi Media Message Service – with the advent of colour screens and phone cameras, it was developed by mobile networks as a replacement for SMS. MMS allows the user to send and receive pictures, audio and short video content (around 250k files). The cost of MMS combined with limited user need has seen a relatively small take up, with 100 million messages per month being sent in the UK (around 2% of the SMS volumes).
Mobile Data Charges – refers to mobile operator charges for accessing the internet and email. In effect, to download anything from the internet the user is charged for data. This can be as high as £7 per megabyte and is additional to a PSMS charged by the content provider. Many users are not aware of the data charges until they appear on their phone bill. Recent flat rate data charges – around £7.50 per month for 1 – 2 gig of downloads has alleviated this, but mobile users not on a flat rate plan are likely to be put off downloading content due to the high charges.
Mobile Operating Systems – There are a number of mobile operating systems used by handset manufacturers – Symbian, Windows Mobile, Ajax, Linux. There are other systems specific to certain phones such as the Blackberry and the iphone. The battle for the dominant mobile OS is likely to develop in the next 12 months and the main players will probably be Symbian, Windows Mobile and Google’s Android.
Mobile Operators – are the companies that own and operate the mobile infrastructure – in the UK they are Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2, Orange and 3. Operators such as Virgin Mobile lease capacity from the main operators.
Mobile Portal – an entry point into the mobile web. The mobile operators run their own portals, and is typically the first point of call for a mobile user logging on to the internet.
MSISDN – the number of a mobile phone. The MSISDN is carried in all SMS and MMS and offers an ideal way to identify a specific user. It cannot be identified when the mobile user is browsing the internet.
Ofcom – The telecoms and media regulator. Any premium rate issues will be dealt with by PhonepayPlus (ICSTIS), but Ofcom will deal with non-premium issues such as SMS spam. Their site has excellent guidance on acceptable usage.
PSMS – Premium SMS – is a message that is charged to the users phone. The charge is on receipt of a message, sometimes referred to as a reverse billing SMS. In order to comply with the regulations, the user must send a request message to a shortcode (a 5 or 6 digit number).
The price of the PSMS is determined by the shortcode number used for the message. These shortcodes are priced at 10p, 25p, 50p, 75p, £1, £1.50, £3 and £5. Billings can also be multiples of the price eg 2 x £1, where the user will receive 2 messages at £1.
Shortcode – a five or six number code for both receiving SMS from and sending Premium SMS to mobile users. Each shortcode is owned by a service provider who aggregates the number across all of the major networks. Shortcodes are country specific and cannot be sent/received outside the country of origin.
SMS – Short Message Service – an SMS is 160 characters of text and 12 characters of header (such as a reply number). Unlike email, for example, an SMS cannot carry additional header information or picture or video content. There are over 4 billion text messages sent each month in the UK – more messages than voice calls made.
SMSC – SMS Centre or gateway. An SMS centre provides a connection between the mobile networks and the internet. They will typically act as an aggregator by offering a single IP-based connection across all networks. They will also set up and get the agreements for shortcodes across the mobile operators.
Subscription/Recurring Billing – is a revenue option that allows the content provider to accept a single SMS request from a mobile user and continue to send messages monthly, weekly or even daily until an opt out or ‘STOP’ message is received. This was commonly used in the ringtone market boom as a method of maximising revenue. However stricter controls have been put in place, particularly with regard to subscription billing from under 16s.
URL Sending – a common method for delivering content by SMS. The text message will contain a URL link, which, when opened will download the content.
WAP – Wireless Application Protocol – the protocol has been widely available since 2000 and was designed to offer a simplified version of web browsing from mobile phones.
Wap Push – or Wap Push Message is a method of delivering mobile content by SMS. The Wap Push is essentially a text message with a URL to the content and configured as a Service Message. It will prompt the handset user to open the URL or download the content. Due to abuse by unscrupulous companies Wap Push can no longer be used in Premium SMS.
Wireless – it used to be the word my grandparents used for their radio! These days it general refers to wireless computer networks, or WiFi. Confusingly ‘wireless’ tends to be the term used in the states for mobile networks.
WML – Wireless Mark Up Language – similar to HTML, WML was designed to be specifically used on mobile. As mobile handsets have developed WML has become less important for delivering web-type content, with XML, compact HTML and HTML also running on many mobile browsers.
© Mark Brill, Ping Corporation Ltd 2007
The difficulty with any new technology or economy are the proliferation of terms and acronyms. The following glossary is intended to cover many of the main terms, but is by no means exhaustive.
3GP – The standard format for mobile video. 3GP stores video streams such as MPEG-4, H.263 or H.264, and audio streams as AMR-NB or AAC-LC formats. 3GP also describes image sizes and bandwidth, so content is correctly sized for mobile display screens.
Aggregator – in the context of SMS and PSMS, an aggregator, such as Mblox, works with the mobile networks to agree shortcodes and bulk SMS routes which are provided to mobile platforms (immedia24)and content providers as single IP connection through their SMS Centre.
Billing Message – see PSMS
Bulk SMS – a common term for text messages bought from aggregators/SMS Centres. These messages are bought in blocks of 1000s or many 1000s at a lower cost than those bought from networks. Bulk SMS is typically used for mobile marketing campaigns and other web-based messaging applications.
Content Platform – or sometimes referred to as a delivery platform, such as . This is software or a web-based application for managing SMS and content delivery such as handling requests from messages sent from handsets. A platform will also provide reports of messages sent and receiving and revenues earned from PSMS.
D2C – Direct to Consumer
Flat Rate Data – see Mobile Data Charges
ICSTIS – The premium rate billing regulator, who are now renamed PhonepayPlus. All providers of PSMS must be registered with them as a service provider. They have the power to raise fines for breaches of their regulations, but only against the service provider and not the content provider – hence the service provider for the Richard and Judy Scandal, Eckoh received the fine, not Channel 4 themselves.
IP – Internet Protocol – any data that is sent or received using the internet.
J2ME – Java-based development language used for many mobile applications, especially games
MMS – Multi Media Message Service – with the advent of colour screens and phone cameras, it was developed by mobile networks as a replacement for SMS. MMS allows the user to send and receive pictures, audio and short video content (around 250k files). The cost of MMS combined with limited user need has seen a relatively small take up, with 100 million messages per month being sent in the UK (around 2% of the SMS volumes).
Mobile Data Charges – refers to mobile operator charges for accessing the internet and email. In effect, to download anything from the internet the user is charged for data. This can be as high as £7 per megabyte and is additional to a PSMS charged by the content provider. Many users are not aware of the data charges until they appear on their phone bill. Recent flat rate data charges – around £7.50 per month for 1 – 2 gig of downloads has alleviated this, but mobile users not on a flat rate plan are likely to be put off downloading content due to the high charges.
Mobile Operating Systems – There are a number of mobile operating systems used by handset manufacturers – Symbian, Windows Mobile, Ajax, Linux. There are other systems specific to certain phones such as the Blackberry and the iphone. The battle for the dominant mobile OS is likely to develop in the next 12 months and the main players will probably be Symbian, Windows Mobile and Google’s Android.
Mobile Operators – are the companies that own and operate the mobile infrastructure – in the UK they are Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2, Orange and 3. Operators such as Virgin Mobile lease capacity from the main operators.
Mobile Portal – an entry point into the mobile web. The mobile operators run their own portals, and is typically the first point of call for a mobile user logging on to the internet.
MSISDN – the number of a mobile phone. The MSISDN is carried in all SMS and MMS and offers an ideal way to identify a specific user. It cannot be identified when the mobile user is browsing the internet.
Ofcom – The telecoms and media regulator. Any premium rate issues will be dealt with by PhonepayPlus (ICSTIS), but Ofcom will deal with non-premium issues such as SMS spam. Their site has excellent guidance on acceptable usage.
PSMS – Premium SMS – is a message that is charged to the users phone. The charge is on receipt of a message, sometimes referred to as a reverse billing SMS. In order to comply with the regulations, the user must send a request message to a shortcode (a 5 or 6 digit number).
The price of the PSMS is determined by the shortcode number used for the message. These shortcodes are priced at 10p, 25p, 50p, 75p, £1, £1.50, £3 and £5. Billings can also be multiples of the price eg 2 x £1, where the user will receive 2 messages at £1.
Shortcode – a five or six number code for both receiving SMS from and sending Premium SMS to mobile users. Each shortcode is owned by a service provider who aggregates the number across all of the major networks. Shortcodes are country specific and cannot be sent/received outside the country of origin.
SMS – Short Message Service – an SMS is 160 characters of text and 12 characters of header (such as a reply number). Unlike email, for example, an SMS cannot carry additional header information or picture or video content. There are over 4 billion text messages sent each month in the UK – more messages than voice calls made.
SMSC – SMS Centre or gateway. An SMS centre provides a connection between the mobile networks and the internet. They will typically act as an aggregator by offering a single IP-based connection across all networks. They will also set up and get the agreements for shortcodes across the mobile operators.
Subscription/Recurring Billing – is a revenue option that allows the content provider to accept a single SMS request from a mobile user and continue to send messages monthly, weekly or even daily until an opt out or ‘STOP’ message is received. This was commonly used in the ringtone market boom as a method of maximising revenue. However stricter controls have been put in place, particularly with regard to subscription billing from under 16s.
URL Sending – a common method for delivering content by SMS. The text message will contain a URL link, which, when opened will download the content.
WAP – Wireless Application Protocol – the protocol has been widely available since 2000 and was designed to offer a simplified version of web browsing from mobile phones.
Wap Push – or Wap Push Message is a method of delivering mobile content by SMS. The Wap Push is essentially a text message with a URL to the content and configured as a Service Message. It will prompt the handset user to open the URL or download the content. Due to abuse by unscrupulous companies Wap Push can no longer be used in Premium SMS.
Wireless – it used to be the word my grandparents used for their radio! These days it general refers to wireless computer networks, or WiFi. Confusingly ‘wireless’ tends to be the term used in the states for mobile networks.
WML – Wireless Mark Up Language – similar to HTML, WML was designed to be specifically used on mobile. As mobile handsets have developed WML has become less important for delivering web-type content, with XML, compact HTML and HTML also running on many mobile browsers.
© Mark Brill, Ping Corporation Ltd 2007
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